Grand Junction, CO to Fruita, CO - 230 miles Big Boy mountains appear

Grand Junction, CO is only 8 miles from Fruita, CO. I decided to take the “long way” to get there. The long way was 230 miles, through spectacular Rocky Mountain scenery. The route included a 8300 ft mountain pass, lots of winding roads, canyons, cows on the road, and dry desert-like burnt grassland at the conclusion on the ride

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I met up with the Tour group I will be riding with for 10 days. I’m the only person in the group who is not a repeat customer. At dinner, I talked with people who have ridden tours with this operator in Alaska, Thailand, India, Death Valley, and Patagonia. Very diverse group of riders. The tour operator has mapped out a “scouting trip”, which means they are conducting this trip for the first time. We are the inaugural group for this trip. Because we end up back at Fruita in 10 days, I was able to off-load a bunch of stuff (tools, oil, inflator, tire repair, clothing, etc) that I won’t need because the tour has a complete support truck including tires, rims, parts and two entire replacement bikes!

A few pics from yesterday and today, hopefully a lot to come as the Tour unfolds. We end up in Aspen, CO tomorrow after about 200 miles of riding.

The picture below is from the Colorado map we were given at dinner. When you see a road with a lot of dots next to it, that road is “scenic”. All the roads on the Tour are scenic. A lot of the roads don’t show up on the map because they are dirt, gravel, Jeep, or old railroad grade routes. These routes are where it will get interesting/challenging 😮.  In the graphic below, part of my route today was on road 139, which is completely dotted:

More dots usually mean more curves, mountain passes, scary-shit roads.